Description of Work USGS will conduct seasonal sampling of benthic invertebrates, zooplankton, prey fish, and their diets to complement the seasonal lower trophic level sampling by EPA. A point of emphasis is describing the vertical distribution of planktivores and their zooplankton prey, to fill a knowledge gap on these predator/prey interactions. These data will provide a more holistic understanding of how invasive-driven, food-web changes could be altering energy available to sport fishes in the Great Lakes and used to build bioenergetics models that can evaluate whether zooplankton dynamics are being driven by limited resources or excessive predation. Understanding the key drivers of zooplankton will provide...

Description of Work Since 2010, connecting channels have been included in each of the Great Lakes’ Lake Management Plans (LaMPs). Lake Ontario now includes both the Niagara River and the St. Lawrence River. The Niagara River is well characterized by a number of long-term programs, but because of the lack of tributary water-quality data, the St. Lawrence River and its tributaries constitute a data gap in the information needed for the Lake Ontario to fulfill its goals. Critical information needs, including basic water-quality parameters, total suspended solids, nutrients and flow data. These data are needed to aid in the identification of sources of nutrient and sediment loading to the St. Lawrence. The monitoring...

The generation of electricity modifies the physical environment of the globe more than any other industrial activity. Indeed, the industry may already create more long-term economic costs than benefits in terms of associated environmental repercussions. This negative economic equation could become even worse unless long-term and programmed investments into energy supply and conservation strategies are made with proper care for all indentifiable environmental effects. The present publiclyowned electricity industry in the UK has an environmental track record that is patchy but generally unsatisfactory, despite some improvements in recent years. The key issue facing the privatized industry is how comprehensive and...

Description of Work USGS will conduct monthly samples of benthic invertebrates, zooplankton, and water quality as well as seasonal sampling of fish and fish diets. This project supports lower trophic sampling in Lake Erie and understanding food webs. An emphasis will be collecting samples from a nearshore to offshore design.

Description of Work Participation on the Lake Erie Lakewide Management Plan Workgroup and related subcommittees such as toxics, sources and loads, nutrients, and biodiversity. Attend meetings and conferences associated with LE LAMP activities. This includes The Lake Erie Millennium Network, CSMI, Ohio Phosphorus Task Force, and other meetings or workshops addressing nutrient and toxicity issues in Lake Erie. Communicate USGS activities in the Lake Erie Basin that can influence understanding or impact decision making.

Description of Work To date many meetings have been attended and coalitions developed between USGS Water Mission area and NYSDEC and EPA region 2 which have spun off into several other monitoring and BUI delisting projects funded by Region 2 through the USGS/EPA IA. This has been a perfect example of leveraging USGS GLRI funds to develop additional GLRI-related program for the Lake Ontario LaMP partners, especially for tributary nutrient and sediment loading to Lake Ontario and helping collect and assess the data needed to remove BUI impairments at the Rochester Embayment and St. Lawrence/Massena AOCs for benthos and phytoplankton impairments.

Description of Work U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) will provide easily accessible, centrally located, USGS biological, water resources, geological, and geospatial datasets for Great Lakes basin restoration activities coordinated with GLOS. Managers, partners and the public will be able to readily access this information in usable interactive formats to help plan and implement restoration activities. Building tools and infrastructure to support standard data access, efficient data discovery and dynamic mapping of watersheds and their hydrologic properties. Developing decision support tools to enhance scientific investigation or disseminate project findings, for example integrating hydrologic models with real-time...

Description of Work In 2011, the US EPA, USGS, and Canada’s DFO/EC continued the evolution of the strategy to conduct an “integrated’ (water quality to fish) spatially-consistent assessment for the entire lake in order to provide biomass estimates for each trophic level. A total of 54 sites were sampled during summer 2011. Water chemistry, nutrients, phytoplankton, zooplankton, benthic invertebrates, Mysis, and pelagic and benthic fish were collected at each site.

This study area consists of a 10-km inland buffer of the U. S. Great Lakes shoreline. Islands within the lakes were included in this invasive Phragmites mapping project where remotely sensed imagery scenes were available.

These files were used to construct corridors estimating the extent of new coastal corridors exposed by reduced lake levels. They are included here to show the available horizontal extent of lidar-derived topo-bathymetric data and thus explicitly identify gaps and limitations of predicted corridor extents under various reduced lake level scenarios. In addition, these files provide users with a background layer that depicts the topographic variability of the submerged near-shore lake bed and terrestrial landscape.These files are 5m grid representations of the hydrographic and topographic data collected by the CHARTS system along the coasts of the U.S. sides of Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake St. Clair, Lake Erie,...

Description of Work USGS scientists will support EPA's year of intensive sampling around the Great Lakes to complement and expand upon EPA and other partner entities work. In 2013, on Lake Ontario USGS will sample the food web from a nearshore (20 m) to offshore (100 m) gradient where seasonal sampling of primary producers, benthic invertebrates, zooplankton, prey fish, sport fish, and their diets will occur. We will work closely with state management agencies and stakeholder groups to ensure that ecosystem models that emerge from this work explore relevant future management scenarios. Scientists will analyze the diets of the six species of trout and salmon currently occurring in Lake Ontario. This predator diet...

Description of Work USGS scientists provide expertise, capacity and support for the implementation of Lakewide Management Plans (LaMPs) and the associated goals, objectives and targets for each of the Great Lakes, including Lake Superior. The LaMPs are critical binational groups that are important for promoting Great Lakes restoration. Specifically, LaMP efforts include compiling monitoring and research information into the Great Lakes web mapper (SiGL Mapper). The Mapper’s focus is on information that will result in recognition of areas where data are being collected, missing or sparse, and on areas where ecosystems are vulnerable.

Description of Work USGS will conduct seasonal sampling of benthic invertebrates, zooplankton, prey fish, sport fish, and their diets to complement the seasonal lower trophic level sampling by EPA. This data will provide a more holistic understanding of how invasive-driven, food-web changes could be altering energy available to sport fishes in the Great Lakes and used to build a decision support tool that can explore how different scenarios (dreissenid control, nutrient reductions, changes in fish stocking) influence the biomass of economically important fisheries.

Description of Work U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) will expand the online availability of geospatial data to monitor the presence and extent of invasive species in wetlands, coastal areas and other sensitive habitats. USGS is working with the Great Lakes Observing System collaboration and other data sharing efforts across the Great Lakes to compile the data into a user friendly format that is accessible on line. Elevation data will be expanded in the Great Lakes Basin using a collaborative to support the GLRI. This information would support invasive species monitoring, wetland inventory, and habitat restoration. USGS will work with the Great Lakes Observing System and other data sharing efforts to make USGS geospatial...

Description of Work The GLRI Rivermouths Project (template 82) is designed to enhance our understanding of how rivermouths function at both regional and local scales by 1) developing a rivermouth classification system, based on a broad scale database covering all Great Lakes rivermouths (>2000); 2) creating a science-based understanding of how the ecological structure and function of rivermouths are linked both to the landscapes they drain and to the Lakes with which they mix; and 3) increasing the public and scientific profile of these ecosystems by connecting researchers and natural resource managers through a collaborative dialog. The long-term goal is to provide enhanced guidance for restoration and rehabilitation...

Description of Work The Science in the Great Lakes (SiGL) Mapper is a map-based discovery tool that spatially displays basin-wide multi-disciplinary monitoring and research activities conducted by both USGS and partners from all five Great Lakes. It was designed to help Great Lakes researchers and managers strategically plan, implement, and analyze monitoring and restoration activities by providing easy access to historical and on-going project metadata while allowing them to identify gaps (spatially and topically) that have been underrepresented in previous efforts or need further study. SiGL provides a user-friendly and efficient way to explore Great Lakes projects and data through robust search options while...

Maps of areas greater than 0.2 hectare (0.5 acre) dominated by invasive Phragmites australis were created for the coastal region (shoreline to 10 km inland) of the United States side the Great Lakes and connecting water ways. The maps were developed using unsupervised/supervised classification methods and ground truth data collected during 2010 and 2011 in conjunction with multi-season ALOS PALSAR imagery (for the remote sensing-based iterative classification process), as well as through the interpretation of aerial photography to reduce classification confusion. Overall classification accuracy compared to field data for mapping was approximately 86%.